Earlier this year, prosecutors charged Julian P. Heicklen, a retired chemistry professor, with jury tampering because he stood outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan providing information about jury nullification to passers-by. Given that I have been recommending nullification for nonviolent drug cases since 1995 — in such forums as The Yale Law Journal, “60 Minutes” and YouTube — I guess I, too, have committed a crime.

The prosecutors who charged Mr. Heicklen said that “advocacy of jury nullification, directed as it is to jurors, would be both criminal and without constitutional protections no matter where it occurred.” The prosecutors in this case are wrong. The First Amendment exists to protect speech like this — honest information that the government prefers citizens not know.

Laws against jury tampering are intended to deter people from threatening or intimidating jurors. To contort these laws to justify punishing Mr. Heicklen, whose court-appointed counsel describe him as “a shabby old man distributing his silly leaflets from the sidewalk outside a courthouse,” is not only unconstitutional but unpatriotic. Jury nullification is not new; its proponents have included John Hancock and John Adams.

The doctrine is premised on the idea that ordinary citizens, not government officials, should have the final say as to whether a person should be punished. As Adams put it, it is each juror’s “duty” to vote based on his or her “own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”

In 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that jurors had no right, during trials, to be told about nullification. The court did not say that jurors didn’t have the power, or that they couldn’t be told about it, but only that judges were not required to instruct them on it during a trial. Since then, it’s been up to scholars like me, and activists like Mr. Heicklen, to get the word out.

Nullification has been credited with helping to end alcohol prohibition and laws that criminalized gay sex. Last year, Montana prosecutors were forced to offer a defendant in a marijuana case a favorable plea bargain after so many potential jurors said they would nullify that the judge didn’t think he could find enough jurors to hear the case. (Prosecutors now say they will remember the actions of those jurors when they consider whether to charge other people with marijuana crimes.)

There have been unfortunate instances of nullification. Racist juries in the South, for example, refused to convict people who committed violent acts against civil-rights activists, and nullification has been used in cases involving the use of excessive force by the police. But nullification is like any other democratic power; some people may try to misuse it, but that does not mean it should be taken away from everyone else.

How one feels about jury nullification ultimately depends on how much confidence one has in the jury system. Based on my experience, I trust jurors a lot. I first became interested in nullification when I prosecuted low-level drug crimes in Washington in 1990. Jurors here, who were predominantly African-American, nullified regularly because they were concerned about racially selective enforcement of the law.

Across the country, crime has fallen, but incarceration rates remain at near record levels. Last year, the New York City police made 50,000 arrests just for marijuana possession. Because prosecutors have discretion over whether to charge a suspect, and for what offense, they have more power than judges over the outcome of a case. They tend to throw the book at defendants, to compel them to plead guilty in return for less harsh sentences. In some jurisdictions, like Washington, prosecutors have responded to jurors who are fed up with their draconian tactics by lobbying lawmakers to take away the right to a jury trial in drug cases. That is precisely the kind of power grab that the Constitution’s framers were so concerned about.

In October, the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, asked at a Senate hearing about the role of juries in checking governmental power, seemed open to the notion that jurors “can ignore the law” if the law “is producing a terrible result.” He added: “I’m a big fan of the jury.” I’m a big fan, too. I would respectfully suggest that if the prosecutors in New York bring fair cases, they won’t have to worry about jury nullification. Dropping the case against Mr. Heicklen would let citizens know that they are as committed to justice, and to free speech, as they are to locking people up.

Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor, is a professor of law at George Washington University and the author of “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice.”

From the oped:
“In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today.
. . .
The commission’s facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment “with models of legal regulation of drugs … that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.”

Read the entire oped here.

The “War on Drugs” was launched by President Richard Nixon 40 years ago this week. In 1980, at the end of its first decade, I began a nine-year career as a “captain” in the war on drugs. I was the attorney in the U.S. House of Representatives principally responsible for overseeing DEA and writing anti-drug laws as counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime.
Read the rest here.

May 29, 2011
By Members of the La Otra Support Committee of the Caravan

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE AUTONOMOUS MUNICIPALITY OF SAN JUAN COPALA, OAXACA, MEXICO

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD

TO THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS

TO THOSE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THIS JUST CAUSE

The Triqui people of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca, Mexico, make a call-out for international solidarity to all the nations and peoples of the world, so that in the coming days solidarity actions are carried out as far and wide as possible, to exert pressure on the Mexican government and to shed light onto the situation that the people of Copala have endured since 2007. This situation has culminated in the events of the last days and in the Caravan of the Color of Blood, that is happening now, and whose intention is for the people of Copala, who were dispossessed and displaced because they exerted their right to autonomy, to return to their homes

The Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala declared its autonomy January 1st, 2007, after members of the community had participated in the Oaxacan uprising of 2006, and from that day onward the Mexican government has maintained a politic of disrespect and destruction of that autonomy. The Mexican government has carried out this process through two political-paramilitary organizations which it has armed and financed; the UBISORT-PRI and the MULT-PUP.

Since 2007 in this war against the autonomy of the Triqui people of San Juan Copala there has been a death-count of more than 30 people – among them young children, women, men, elders, traditional leaders, and solidarity activists. Furthermore this war has made children orphans and women widows and survivors of sexual assault.

Consulate wires leaked by Wikileaks indicate that U.S. military grade weapons are in the hands of Mexican Drug Cartels. The attempt, by the Obama Administration to finger gun sellers in the U.S., as the source of our “Border War,” is challenged in the report from NarcoNews.

“The lot numbers of some of the grenades recovered, including the grenade used in the attack on Televisa, indicate that previously ordnance with these same lot numbers may have been sold by the USG [U.S. Government] to the El Salvadoran military in the early 1990s via the Foreign Military Sales program.”

To read this excellent piece, click here.

While feuding drug cartels are responsible for much of the violence in Mexico, abuses by security forces are not uncommon.

An April 2009 Human Rights Watch report identified 17 cases of abuse by the Mexican military, including “killings, torture, rapes and arbitrary detentions”. And, activists say the line between the state and the cartels is often blurred by corrupting infusions of drug money.

In August, the government fired more than 3,200 police officers – almost 10 per cent of the federal force - including the police chief in Cuidad Juárez, because of widespread corruption and links to cartels.

But despite this widespread evidence of human rights abuses and corruption, Mexico and the US are moving to increase militarisation.

Read the full article here.

TO INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT ORGANIZATIONS
TO WOMEN’S AND HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS
TO ANTI-MINING AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY NETWORKS
TO THE MEDIA

On April 27, near San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, a humanitarian observation mission was attacked by the paramilitary group UBISORT, during which Alberta Cariño Trujillo and Jyri Jaakkola were assassinated.

The initial investigation was carried out by the Oaxacan State Attorney General’s Office, however, given the evident relationship which exists between the state government and the paramilitary group, it was demanded that the case be taken up by the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which joined the preliminary investigation.  Six months have passed since the crime occurred and the PGR submitted the results of its investigation to a judge, but given the investigation’s deficiencies it was sent back and up to now there does not exist any interest on the part of the PGR to ensure that this double murder does not remain in impunity.

During this time, numerous national and international organizations, as well as dignitaries and parliamentarians have demanded that the PGR carry out an adequate investigation and obtain justice, however, this institution has not shown any genuine interest in investigating this crime and even less in punishing those materially and intellectually responsible for it.

Below is a sign-on letter to oppose additional U.S. funds to the Merida Initiative for the disastrous drug war. We have already received an incredible response from all over the Hemisphere. We believe this is a critical juncture, as homicides and human rights violations increase in Mexico and citizens in both countries reject militarization as a strategy to weaken organized crime. This week is the fourth anniversary of the murder of journalist Brad Will, a classic case of impunity in Mexico. We urge you to join us and the hundreds of organizations and individuals listed below in signing this statement. The movement against the drug war enforcement/interdiction approach is getting stronger in light of the history of failure and enormous cost in lives and resources that it entails. It is unconscionable that the US government continues to support it. This is the time to make our voices heard.

Organization sign-ons: mail to stopmeridainitiative@gmail.com

Individual sign-ons at this link:http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/703/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5074

Human Rights, Labor, and Religious Groups Call on Obama Administration and Congress to Uphold Human Rights, Halt Drug War Aid to Mexican Security Forces

Despite nearly 30,000 drug-related homicides, a huge increase in human rights violations by the armed forces and growing citizen opposition to the bloody “war on drugs”, the U.S. Congress is once again considering the allocation of U.S. public funds to Mexico to support the failed counter-narcotics policy. President Barack Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget contains $410 million for the Merida Initiative, a security aid package for Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic.  Of that total, $310 million are allocated for Mexico. We question the Administration’s decision to extend indefinitely and unconditionally Bush’s three-year Merida Initiative in light of the violence and ineffectiveness of the strategy, and mounting calls for a new approach from citizens’ groups on both sides of the border.

Existing U.S. aid to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, amounting to more than $1.3 billion, does not include necessary safeguards to ensure that it does not contribute to systematic human rights violations. Only fifteen percent of the funding may be withheld pending a State Department report on Mexico’s progress toward meeting the human rights conditions of the bill.  Furthermore, the Merida Initiative (also called “Plan Mexico”) includes no benchmarks for effective evaluation.

The Merida Initiative supports a reckless strategy that has led to massive bloodshed in Mexico and failed to achieve goals to reduce illicit drug flows, assure public safety or significantly weaken cartels. With 45,000 troops in the streets as the core feature of this militarization strategy, the Mexican armed forces have been implicated in murders, rapes and violations of human rights—the vast majority of which have never been prosecuted.

We are concerned that the State Department has ignored human rights abuses stemming from the Merida Initiative aid and continued impunity and corruption within Mexico, in favor of supporting a militarized approach in the “war on drugs” that has verifiably increased those abuses. The so-called human rights conditions included in the Merida Initiative provide no guarantee whatsoever of progress, and have merely served as lip service to serious concerns while permitting support of the overall strategy. There are no indications of a sustained reduction in the availability of illegal narcotics on the U.S. market that can even be used to justify the heightened violence caused by this strategy.

In particular, we would like to call attention to the case around the murder of U.S. citizen Bradley Roland Will as exemplary of the non-cooperation and impunity with which security forces, the government and the judicial system in Mexico have addressed abuses of human rights by the state. Will, an independent journalist, was shot to death in Oaxaca, Mexico on October 27, 2006, while documenting a series of protest demonstrations. Will was one of at least 26 people allegedly killed by government forces and hired thugs during statewide protests against corruption and impunity. The state has failed to successfully prosecute a single case in the assassinations. Since the drug war was launched in late 2006 Mexico has become a world leader in murders of journalists.

The initial release of Merida Initiative aid was accompanied by a U.S. State Department call for a “thorough, credible and transparent investigation” into Will’s killing. Evidence identifies police and local officials as the assassins in the Will case. However, the Mexican Attorney General’s wrongly imprisoned a protester for the murder. After Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, the Mexican National Human Rights Commission and the Will family disputed the Attorney General’s claims, the protestor was freed due to lack of evidence and no one has been prosecuted for his murder or the murder of 25 Oaxacans killed in 2006. The U.S. State Department remained silent regarding the false charges and has since done nothing to ensure that Will’s actual killer(s) face justice.

Documentation exists of killings, torture, beatings and gender-based violence committed by security forces, including the cases of Atenco, Ciudad Juarez and repression of labor unions. The U.S. provision of lethal aid and training to these same security forces violates our principles as a nation, tarnishes our reputation and implicates the U.S. government in serious and widespread human rights abuses. The Obama Administration is surely aware of the fact that the purported goal of the Merida Initiative to help establish good governance in Mexico cannot be attained in a climate of impunity for human rights violations and a destabilizing drug war.

The U.S. government has the responsibility to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used in the violation of human rights.  Instead of providing training and funding to the military, police and civil institutions that have allowed and facilitated impunity in the Will case and other cases of abuse against Mexicans, the U.S. government should focus on attacking the causes and structures of organized crime within the United States—drug addiction and the demand for black-market drugs, international financial transactions and transborder corruption, arms trafficking–and aid Mexico in eliminating the roots causes of the spread of crime such as poverty, inequality, unemployment and the lack of opportunities for youth.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Immediately review and re-orient the failed “drug war” strategy for Mexico.

• Suspend military and security aid pending an urgent public review of current and alternative strategy as well as the resolution of the Will case and other human rights cases.

• Establish clear objectives and benchmarks for U.S. taxpayer funded for counternarcotics programs to gauge the success (or failure) of these programs.

• Give priority funding to alternative responses to illicit drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, including treatment for addicts; harm reduction and community abuse prevention programs as well as selective decriminalization to reduce the profiteering of criminal gangs, banks, and corrupt politicians from illegal narcotics.

• Step-up financial crimes operations to identify and prosecute those in banks and other economic structures who enable the estimated $30 billion-dollar a year narcotrafficking industry to operate and launder money.

• Publicly denounce and actively push to end impunity in cases of murder, torture, rape and beatings including those in Oaxaca, Atenco, Ciudad Juarez, and civilian deaths at the hands of the armed forces, as well as the use of the army to violently repress labor rights.

CIP Americas Program

Global Exchange

Friends of Brad Will

Kathy and Hardy Will

School of the Americas Watch

Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña “Tlachinollan”

Witness for Peace

General José Francisco Gallardo, “Defensoría de Derechos Humanos General Gallardo,” por la Dignidad Ciudadana y del Soldado A.C.
Tom Hayden and The Peace and Justice Resource Center

Reporters Without Borders

Guatemala Human Rights Commission

WESPAC Foundation

Kathleen A. Staudt, Professor, Political Science, UTEP

John Ross, journalist

Otros Mundos AC/Amigos de la Tierra México

Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas (COMPA).

Movimiento Mexicano de Afectados por la Minería (REMA)

Southwest Workers’ Union (SWU)

Observatorio Latinoamericano de Geopolítica

Movimiento por la Paz, la Soberanía y la Solidaridad entre los Pueblos (Mopassol) de Argentina

Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC)

CoecoCeiba/Amigos de la Tierra Costa Rica

Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe (atlac)

Coordinación Nacional Agraria (CNA)/Colombia

Coalición de Tendencias Clacistas/Venezuela

Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos (AMAP).

Unión de Comunicades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo (UCIZONI)/México

Campaña por la Desmilitarización de las Américas (CADA)

SERAPAZ

Cindy Sheehan, Peace and Justice Activist, USA

Al Rojas and Frente de Mexicanos en El Exterior

Just Foreign Policy

Sirena Pellarolo, California State University Northridge, Eastside Café

Eduardo Galeano

H.I.J.O.S. México

Comité Cerezo México

Ma. Lourdes González (mamá de Pável Gonzalez) Comite Pavel Gonzalez

Red Solidaria Década contra la Impunidad

Contraimpunidad, Uruguay

CASA Collective

MUJERES SIN MIEDO, Mexico

Gruppe B.A.S.T.A., Münster, Alemania

Noam Chomsky, Professor, MIT

EDUCA/Oaxaca

Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras

Consejo de Investigaciones e Información en Desarrollo CIID-Guatemala

Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos-Brasil

Servicio Paz y Justicia en América Latina (SERPAJ -AL)

Jubileo Sur Mexico

Marea Creciente-México

El Movimiento Popular Oscar Arnulfo Romero

Associção de Favelas de São José dos Campos

Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña

PAPDA-Haiti

Código Sur

Common Frontiers-Canada

MIXER & FILM FUNDRAISER for MEXICO’S OTHER CAMPAIGN

beginning with FOOD, SANGRIA, MUSIC and MORE

around 7p we’ll screen
The blockbuster drama/comedy/monster-movie with smart political commentary and Korea’s highest grossing film ever…THE HOST!

Come start the week off right with a little pre-Halloween soiree

Join us at The Commons Brooklyn
388 Atlantic Avenue
between Hoyt and Bond St
A,C,G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn
F to Bergen
2,3,4,5 to Nevins
D,N,R to Pacific-Atlantic

$5 door, food and drink by donation

On Facebook here.

PLEASE RSVP to zapagringo@gmail.com (you don’t need to RSVP to attend)

More Info on the Film and the Other Campaign:

* The Host

“The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunt us from without and within.” -Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Come enjoy “one of the 100 Best Films of World Cinema” (Empire Magazine) before the sequel comes out next year and Hollywood puts out its own shitty remake!

* The Other Campaign

Initiated five years ago by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the Other Campaign is a transnational movement to liberate Mexico “from below and to the left” with adherents ranging from the Zapatista communities of Chiapas all the way up to the immigrant families of Movement for Justice in El Barrio, and beyond.

This is a fundraiser to support the National Encuentro of the Other Campaign being co-convened by Movement for Justice in El Barrio and the People’s Front in Defense of the Land who will be hosting the gathering in their community of Atenco, just outside of Mexico City, on November 13 and 14. For more details check out the call here.